A gripping story told through many voices. Matilde, twelve years old, is the character around whom all the others revolve: her two younger sisters, her father Giovanni Corrias, a magistrate tasked with a sensitive investigation—the death of a child who fell from a window. Just as this investigation begins, a second death occurs: the girls' mother, Giovanni's wife, is struck by a car while walking the dog. Then there are the parents of the dead boy; Corrias's colleagues on the case, especially Violaine, the book's second protagonist; and gradually everyone else connected to these events.
The two sudden, simultaneous deaths seem to stop time itself—freezing the emotions and dreams of all these people, each with a distinct character of their own. Matilde watches, searches, questions, asks, and participates in her own way in the suffering of those around her. Surrounded by the "silence" that envelops her, she finds her own way through.
A psychologically compelling book about the eternally tragic question of innocent suffering.
M. B., 2010